The present invention is generally related to cellular telephone billing systems, and more particularly to a method of selecting the most cost effective service plan provided by cellular telephone resellers to multi-line customers.
Cellular telephone billing systems currently accept cellular telephone call detail data on a periodic basis by electronic transmission or on magnetic media from cellular telephone carriers, process the call detail data on the tapes, and typically generate monthly invoices for the user associated with each cellular telephone number. For a multi-line customer owning a large number of cellular telephones with associated cellular telephone numbers, a different monthly invoice (in varying formats) is typically generated by a reseller for each of the cellular telephone numbers. Each such monthly bill may be based on different cellular service plans, since a reseller typically offers several different service plans for each cellular telephone system providing service to the same market. As a result, it is extremely difficult to determine for each cellular telephone if a different service plan may be more cost effective than the current service plan. Therefore, for the foregoing reasons, there is a need to provide on a periodic basis, both consolidated cost and usage information for the cellular telephones owned by a multi-line customer and cost estimates for the eligible cellular service plans for each of its cellular telephones users, in order to efficiently and cost effectively make use of the cellular telephones it owns.